Volvo wants to eliminate injuries and deaths in its vehicles by 2020

Volvo has a well-established reputation of building the safest passenger vehicles in the industry but the carmaker believes it can improve on its own standards by reaching the ultimate goal of avoiding car accidents all together and reducing the road death toll to zero. Volvo has now set itself the ambitious target of zero injuries or deaths in its vehicles by 2020.

A spokesman for Volvo, who spoke with Reuters, revealed the carmaker’s desire to eliminate all-crash related injuries and death and eventually the elimination of car accidents altogether. To do so, Volvo plans to create a car that essentially "forms a giant bumper" around its occupants to protect them in the event of an accident.

However, the ideal solution would be to prevent the accident in the first place and thus Volvo is also working on a host of radar-based safety technologies as well.

It the technology proves successful and becomes standard in all cars we could one day see the world-wide annual death toll of 1.2 million people reduced significantly.

Easy...do it today. Get better drivers. Put down the phone, and pay attention - be aware of what is going on around you.

Gus
Posted: 4/30/2008 8:29pm PDT

Not so simple, people aren't perfect no matter how much attention they pay and how well trained they are.
There is only one way to come close - total automation.

chris
Posted: 4/30/2008 8:57pm PDT

spoken like a true californian gus.

"in soviet russia, car drives YOU!"

I thought americans frowned upon the idea of anything having any sort of control over their lives. you cant automate all the cars because then the government could hack in and make you all drive yourselves off the cliff... or some paranoid crap like that. government is a business people. less tax payers equals less revenue.

and yeah, 2020 is far too soon for total automation

Stephen
Posted: 4/30/2008 10:19pm PDT

No, most of us Americans are lazy, which is why the segway actually sold. But yeah Volvo is just trying to be bold. No matter how good they make their cars some idiot will find a way to wreck it fast enough to not only hurt themselves but maybe even kill themselves. Besides if they made it too good we wouldn't be able to sue somebody for tapping our fender at 5 mph's.

Gus
Posted: 5/1/2008 12:20am PDT

You misinterpreted my intention, I don't want automation, I'm merely suggesting that it would be the only true method to achieve zero accidents - maybe...

Bill
Posted: 5/1/2008 5:05am PDT

There's only one way - square wheels that don't allow the car to move.

There's NOTHING that will save you from that drunk driver that blows through the red light and t-bones your car going 100 MPH.

HECTOR
Posted: 5/1/2008 6:03am PDT

You gotta love these people that make outrageous promises which anyone with an ounce of common sense know it will not be possible to keep. Then again in 2020 no one will remember reading this webpage and no one will go to Volvo and say *what happened to your promise of 12 years ago? They know they'll not be held accountable to they feel free to spout as much nonsense as this.

2. Volvo S40 gets hit, head on, and then run over by an Abrams M1A1 tank in a freak accident, one of those *one in a billion* things. Does anyone survive?

You tell me honestly that you believe that after 2020 no oe in a Volvo will be injured or killed in an accident and I have some genuine Al Gore brand carbon offsets to sell you.

chris
Posted: 5/1/2008 9:34am PDT

lol hector; i know what you mean. some one will manage to do it, some how. but here's something to consider; CF isnt that far away. and a lot of studies have been done that have said once the cost of the material comes down (which should happen in the next 5 years or so due to increasing production), you could see CF frames in more expensive cars.

it seems to me though that volvo is just trying to revive their single strongest brand image; safety.

i can see them reducing the injury rate in their cars by 2020 to a statistical 0, but there will always be those two cars that hit head on while both doing 100 mph. it will happen.

but if they turn the entire interior of the car into a huge air bag.. well, that combined with full CF passenger cages, you could essentially guarantee that anyone abiding the law and in decent physical health will survive any conceivable accident.

Gus
Posted: 5/1/2008 10:38am PDT

I laud them for trying.
Even if it's a marketing ploy, it's a good one. Volvo remains one of the leaders in safety and they should toot their own horn every now and then.
At worst, it motivates the engineers inside the company to come up with unique ideas...

exess
Posted: 5/2/2008 2:02am PDT

Who knows, maybe one day we'll have crumple zones big enough to absorb the energy produced by 200 mph collisions!

lexlife
Posted: 5/5/2008 11:35pm PDT

I think Volvo and other car manufacturers for that matter should build cars to NASCAR spec as they have no problem withstanding horrific accidents at near 200mph+ speeds. Couple that type of safety cage design with the latest automation to avoid accidents and they'll produce a far safer vehicle. This pledge from Volvo comes too late for a loved one of mine but I hope their re-dedicated efforts save the lives of many others.